Career Day for Native American Students Showcases Tribal Jobs

Port Madison Enterprises again offered its annual career day on Tuesday, exposing about 200 local high-school students to career opportunities in hospitality. With a tour of the Suquamish Clearwater Casino, and Resort. Students and instructors tour the resort property. (LARRY STEAGALL | KITSAP SUN)

LARRY STEAGALL

SUQUAMISH -

It was a day of possibilities, of fulfilling their human potential — and of getting out of school.

Some 135 mostly Native American students from across the Kitsap Peninsula streamed into the Suquamish Clearwater Casino and Resort on Tuesday for the seventh annual Native American Career Day to learn not just about tribal job and career opportunities, but to receive encouragement to live life well and fully.

The day was hosted by Port Madison Enterprises, the business arm of the Suquamish Tribe.

The stream of laughing, texting, shoving students from the eighth through 12th grades were a stark contrast to the older regulars at the slots or gaming tables.

“There’s huge opportunity in Indian country,” said PME spokeswoman April Leigh. PME, with more than 800 workers, is one of Kitsap’s largest employers.

For starters, there are jobs in information technology, accounting, business administration, sales, marketing and merchandising, plumbing, carpentry, welding and electrical work.

The students started their tour at the PME board room upstairs from the casino. There, they learned that even tribal enterprises aren’t immune from the recession.

“We’ve had to hammer down on our spending,” said Irene Carper, casino assistant general manager. “They’re not coming in. They don’t have the money they had three, four five years ago,” she said of casino guests.

Students peeked into cramped offices, their backpacks tipping a desk lamp or two, then crammed into elevators and streamed down the stairs to head through the casino to the buffet, where they saw workers folding linens and getting lunch ready.

Then it was off to traipse through the hotel and spa, then onto the big yellow school buses and the House of Awakened Culture, the Suquamish community center. There, a very special actor was waiting to give them one last big dose of inspiration.

Film and television star Adam Beach had just finished a guest appearance on the new “Hawaii Five-O” television series, which can be seen in a few weeks, and on a movie with Harrison Ford, “Cowboys and Aliens,” due out next summer.

Beach, 38, grew up in Canada on the Dog Creek First Nations Reservation and often speaks to Native American young people. Tuesday, he urged them to live to their highest artistic potential.

“There’s one guy in this room who’s giving you 150 percent, and that’s me,” the Golden Globe winner told his rapt audience.